Congratulating Connectifier

We are thrilled to congratulate Founders John Jersin, Ben McCann and the entire Connectifier team on their announced acquisition by LinkedIn. This is a wonderful outcome for all parties, and it has been an honor to be a part of this incredible team. True was the first investor in Connectifier in August 2012, investing in John and Ben’s idea at inception. Since that time, we have remained the largest investor in the company, leading their Series A and participating in their Series B.

We were first introduced to Connectifier by Sean Ellis, Founder of True portfolio company GrowthHackers. Sean has great instincts about SaaS businesses and thought we’d be a good fit with John and Ben, who were first-time Founders. Like so many of our best investments, we didn’t invest in Connectifier as much as we invested in Ben and John. We believed in them from the very beginning, as it was clear they had the tech chops to build a successful product, but they also had a maturity and presence of mind about the marketplace that continually impressed us.

Over the past four years, we have watched John and Ben grow Connectifier from a brilliant technology with a compelling business plan to a wildly successful platform for discovering, qualifying and connecting with candidates. As Ben and John mention in their blog post, Connectifier has helped grow companies “that do everything from build social networks to spacecraft, teams that run financial markets, operate the largest supply chains in the world, or build the computers or phones you might be reading this on now.” My partner Phil Black and I have worked closely with John and Ben, jumping on monthly 1-hour calls in lieu of monthly “board meetings,” and this formula has worked amazingly well as we discussed strategy, reporting and leadership. We are incredibly proud of what they have accomplished.

We’d also like to congratulate Emilie Choi, Scott Roberts and the entire LinkedIn team. LinkedIn is lucky to have Connectifier join their incredible team, and we look forward to seeing what they’ll accomplish together as they bring their powerful search technology to the world’s largest recruiting platform.

An outstanding group of investors contributed to Connectifier’s success, including Daniel Freidland of Goldcrest Capital, Marc Averitt of Okapi Venture Capital, and angels Sean Ellis, Andrew Chen and James Hong. It has been a personal privilege to work with these outstanding people over many years. The success of this team is much deserved. Lastly, a special thanks to Mike Marquez at Code Advisors who, along with Andrew Erskine and Orick’s world-class legal counsel, helped navigate the final outcome.